Musharraf has not kept his promises: Vajpayee

Sujit Chatterjee in Almaty (Kazakhstan)

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Tuesday insisted that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had kept none of his promises over the past six months and that cross-border infiltration continues unabated.

"If we see that action on the ground corresponds to the promises made by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, we will naturally take appropriate consequent steps," he told the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Almaty.

He said that India is willing to discuss all issues, including Kashmir, with Pakistan, but for that cross-border terrorism has to end.

Vajpayee was responding to the appeal made by Musharraf to India to 'return to the dialogue table' to defuse the current tensions between the two countries.

Addressing the delegates after Musharraf's speech, Vajpayee said he heard the Pakistani president talk about tensions in South Asia.

As far as Indo-Pak dialogue is concerned, he said, "It is India which has always taken the initiative. In the space of the last four years, I have been to
Lahore and invited President Musharraf to Agra."

Vajpayee, who spoke in chaste Hindi, recalled that Musharraf in his January 12 address had publicly made two promises - that Pakistan will not allow its territory to be used to promote terrorism anywhere in the world and that no organisation will be allowed to indulge in terrorism in the name of Kashmir.

On May 27, he said Musharraf reiterated that cross-border infiltration would stop.

"You would agree that the past record makes us very cautious about accepting such promises made by President Musharraf," the prime minister told the CICA delegates.

Maintaining that Asia was home to many serious problems that continue to impede its progress, Vajpayee said, "It is my belief that none of these contentious issues is beyond resolution through dialogue - patient, sincere and mutually accommodative dialogue."

Unfortunately, he said, in recent times, the logic of conflict resolution through dialogue has had to counter a formidable enemy - terrorism, sustained by religious extremism, which has its epicentre in India's neighbourhood.

"It has emerged as the biggest enemy of peace, security, democracy and multi-religious societies in Asia and around the world. Experience shows that terror respects neither boundaries nor lines of self-control," he said adding that its lethal power and sinister objectives became known to the world after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.

"We in India have been fighting terrorism from the line of self-control that we have drawn around ourselves. We have heard, once again, assurances that this line will not be allowed to be pierced. We hope that words contained in these assurances will be matched by deeds," he said in an obvious reference to promises made by Musharraf to the US and Britain.

Stating that Asian and global security depended crucially on how unitedly, decisively and speedily the menace was countered, he said in this struggle, no nation could rationalise or justify terrorism.

"The plain and simple truth is that the killing of innocent men, women and children cannot be defended by invoking any of the alleged grievances, underlying causes or attendant circumstances," he said.

meanwhile, expressing concern over the 'explosive situation' between India and Pakistan, Russian President Vladimir Putin said it 'threatens to destabilize the situation in the whole Eurasian continent'.

Putin, scheduled to meet Vajpayee and Musharraf separately later, said he had voiced concern many times about the threat of international terrorism, which 'has nothing to do with any concrete religion, nor with nationality nor with territory".

He said world leaders would make every effort to defuse the crisis.

Chinese president Jiang Zemin called on those involved in regional conflicts to settle 'their disputes peacefully without delay'.